Restaurants have to stop claiming they're "vegan friendly" if there's nothing on the menu that's vegan but they do offer a veggie burger, perhaps made with mushroom and quinoa, that comes with dairy cheese and aioli and can easily exclude those two items from the burger at the expense of its taste. Sorry, but that's just not going to cut it. I don't care if a place isn't vegan or doesn't cater to vegans at all. I'll go somewhere else, quietly. But don't pretend to cater to the subset with a limp concession. (Meanwhile, I feel sorry for the burger.)

06/02

That I used to trot around the city, here and Philadelphia, in towering heels, often not even in the proper size, seems impossible. It seems like another person did that, another person managed to not teeter and/or totter and could run in those things and did, and who wouldn't be caught dead in any shoe that could even remotely be described as "sensible". Now I see chicks mincing around in those things and think, "You stupid, stupid, woman." I'm sure someone thought the same of me, perhaps even the me of today, raising an eyebrow in the future, and grimacing.

06/03

"Our place must disgust you," my nephew says, or something like that, as I look around the dumping ground that he and his girlfriend call home. I've just told him how I have to keep my apartment in good order at all times, including making the bed every day, given that I work from home, and to have it any other way would drive me bonkers.

"Nah, it doesn't bother me in someone else's home," I say. I am, of course, lying. "But you guys ARE slobs."

This quells my anxiety about under under-bed clutter somewhat. At least for now.

06/04

When waiting for a file to download, sometimes I will visit the social media page of someone who rankles the hell out of me and comment aloud and loudly on their posts and/or photos. "Oh, put your fucking toes away, for fuck's sake!" I will say. Or "Not cute. NOT CUTE!" when you post a photo of a standard issue kid under the impression that he is much cuter than everyone around him no doubt tells him he is. Or "That looks like CRAP" about someone's "noms". And then my file is done and I quietly forge ahead with work.

06/05

"Puppy, sit down. Puppy, come on. Puppy!"

"I'm not a puppy. I'm a cat."

"Yes, but you're still a puppy."

"That makes no sense. I'm a cat."

"And a puppy."

We've had this little back and forth quite a few times, and my cat either truly doesn't "get it" or she's pretending she doesn't get it because she hopes it evolves/devolves into a "Who's on first?" kind of thing or she gets it and hates it and says the same thing every time in the hopes of wearing me out and abandoning the "Puppy" thing.

Whatever/whichever, she's so damned stubborn.

06/06

I can't stand the cell phone ring tone that sounds like an old-fashioned traditional telephone bell. That there isn't a little metal contraption inside the phone with a clapper hammering its sides to create an actual acoustic sound whose vibration can be felt by placing your hands on the hefty weight of the phone's body, I don't want to hear it coming from some delicate slimline gadget barely larger than a deck of cards. I'd actually like to never hear any cell phone ring and go back to only reserving their use for home, but that's another whole thrilling story.

06/07

An ex-beau from almost 20 years ago is in town with his baby for several days. His girlfriend, the baby's mother, is at a business meeting outside the city. The baby is much cuter in person than she is in Facebook photos, one of the cutest I've seen in a while, with facial expressions that make me think she's secretly older than her nine months.
"I can't believe this is my life now," my friend says, surrounded by a swamp of baby paraphernalia. Even though he's thrilled to be a dad, I'm glad some part of him is like, "Nooooooo!"

06/08

Facebook, please. Enough with the "What's your favorite food? What are your hobbies? Where would you like to visit? What makes you happy? What's your life motto?" balderdash. If I wanted to subject myself to this kind of bullshit, I'd sign up for eHarmony again, which did such a bang-up job in 2010 that one of the first gems it presented to me was the lying, cheating, motherfucker whose breakup with me by email after four years together prompted me to check it out in the first place. (P.S. "French fries" is the answer to every question, so enough already.)

06/09

Next month's trip to Chicago is the first outside of the tristate area that I've taken since the fall of 2013 and I'm chomping at the bit. After California, I fulfilled my mission of paying off all debt, so now I can get on with getting out of town on a much more regular basis, whether to visit friends as I'm doing this time or finding a new place and just doing it alone. My friend N takes herself on a birthday trip every year, and I'm may just follow suit. There is absolutely no reason anymore why I can't.

06/10

It's the mid '80s and I'm in the home of some of my boyfriend's friends. It's someone's birthday, and it's not necessarily a party but several gifts are being opened. The birthday girl is tickled to death by her boyfriend's gift, which is a huge variety of deodorant in a rattan basket. I think, "Why?" and "Ew", but it turns out she loves the smell of deodorant, all kinds, and this, to her, is like fine perfume. She pops off the lid of several of them and takes a deep whiff and I cringe, imagining her applying them later on.

06/11

When all else fails, random haiku saves the day.

Couscous for dinner
Cooks in only five minutes
Eaten in five too.

Chicago next month
No cheating boyfriend this time
This time I have fun.

I still love New York
Even though it's too damned "clean"
I'm wistful for grit.

These sacks of standard issue government shit are all the lying variety. Does anyone, regardless of party or who they voted for or whatever, really believe that testifying under oath in front of any court in any land on any planet in any galaxy means these jackholes are actually going to tell the truth? "Ohhh, Trump says he'll testify," blah blah. So fucking what? For real, honestly, seriously, is he all of a sudden going to throw his tiny hands up in the air and say, "You got me, guys! Yeah, you've been right about this stuff all along!" Really?

06/13

Yesterday over dinner at a groovy new French vegan restaurant, a new friend briefly mentioned that she talks to herself at home and asked if I do. I acknowledged that I do, yes, of course, but ohhhh, do I dare reveal to her how much and thus risk her thinking I'm EVEN MORE IMPOSSIBLY AMAZING than she probably already thinks I am? Do I dare? What's the protocol and/or standard for revealing one's overwhelming fucking insane habits, proclivities, and whatnot and whozit to people you don't want to duck behind pillars to avoid having to engage you on the street?

06/14

Just had a flashback to a coffee date from several years ago, borne of one of my last-gasp dating site attempts to find someone who wouldn't nauseate me on sight. This fella had insisted on talking on the phone before meeting, and I indulged him, even though that insistence raised a pink flag if not a completely red one. Although we had laughed on the phone, I knew immediately upon his approach outside the cafe that this was a "no", and that was before I even got a glimpse of the luxurious ear hair. How is that even marginally acceptable?

06/15

I have no patience for people who can't get their hands on Purell fast enough after any encounter with a handrail or who rush to brush their teeth within moments of coming into contact with food. These are probably the same people who would've shot me sharp disapproving tsk-tsks every time I was in a car in Europe and had to pee and, with no restroom on the horizon, just pulled over, found some sort of growth I hoped wasn't poisonous, and did what I had to do. What the hell kind of life is it without smudges and grit?

06/16

I don't want my grocery store aisles wide and expansive and brightly lit. I don't want canned music guaranteed to get the soccer moms' toes tapping as they unwittingly feel compelled to buy more gluten-free pasta than they need for the week. If I wanted everything to be spic and span, neat and clean, tidy and antiseptic, I'd live in the suburbs. I'd stock up on paper towel and coconut water as I sipped on a kale smoothie made in-store for three times as much cost than if I'd made it at home. No thanks. I need my city gritty.

06/17

Several years ago my then-boyfriend wrapped coir rope around the heating pole near the bathtub. My now-cat is thrilled to demonstrate her scratching post skills on it, and as a result the part her nimble, eager paws touch is starting to unravel. She's fond of the detached pieces and displays an impressive aptitude for parkour ("purrkour"? no!) while playing with it on her own. She truly shines, though, when I toss it high in the air and she springs vertically, catches a coir curl between her paws in midair, and upon landing, flops onto her back, paws still in overdrive

06/18

Happy Father's Day to everyone, especially those of you who this time last year still had a dad who was alive and kicking and quite possibly even screaming but now don't and are missing that weird guy like crazy and wishing he were around right now so he could aggravate the fuck out of you with whatever it is he used to do that irritated you the most and every once in a while had you think, "One day he won't be around anymore and I'll probably miss this stupid bullshit," and it only hit you today just how much.

06/19

I couldn't give less of a fuck about what was in Carrie Fisher's autopsy report if Mark Hamill himself delivered it to my door along with endless iced coffee, a trough of french fries, and a basket of German Shepherd puppies. She didn't hide the fact of her drug abuse and spoke out about it with unapologetic honesty, incredible raucous humor, down to earth grace, and genuine humility, all of which is much more valuable to people's lives, especially those who battle with mental illness and share her struggle, than what caused the end of hers. Move on. Carr(ie)y on.

06/20

In the mid '70s, I was in a store with, I think, my biodad, shopping for a videotape player. I'm pretty sure a salesman was trying to convince him to go with Beta instead of VHS. I felt sorry for the VHS on the shelves who heard this shpiel, hated that their feelings were getting hurt, and didn't want them to feel bad about themselves. I probably apologized to them silently and touched my hand to at least one so they wouldn't feel neglected. Forty years later, I feel bad for not recognizing Beta would be the one needing consolation.

06/21

He's been watching lots of TV lately, so buying a new 44" TV wasn't foolhardy. I, too, have been indulging quite a bit, definitely as an "escape mechanism" and an alternative to reading more news than absolutely necessary (which would thus necessitate even deeper escape). However, as much as I'd like a larger TV, I don't want some big modern plastic thing taking up a large swath of space and altering the apartment's mood. Sure, my TV is barely biggest than my computer monitor, but it's served me well for the 11 years I've been here and with such earnest.

06/22

The moment I realized I was mistaken and no, I had *not* inadvertently purchased a Basic Economy roundtrip on United but a regular Economy, I practically broke out into a little jig accompanied by the sprouting of spontaneous annoying bagpipes and a fair sprinkling of glitter. This means I don't have to check my carryon bag for $25 each way as I had thought and don't have to feel like an idiot for buying the wrong kind of ticket. While this won't buy back my past self-flagellation, it spares me from future episodes, and for that I am supremely delighted.

06/23

It's humid "AF" and I'm making what they call a beeline for the theater on West 48th. I'm practically pirouetting to get around a gluey clot of tourists who have it in their collective mindlessness that Times Square is a super place to spend their vacation time. I'm grateful for their fear of stepping off the sidewalk and into the periphery of traffic to plow ahead, to actually get to where they're going rather than getting stuck in the crowd much like the lump of Olive Garden breadsticks they've just eaten will be stuck in their colons for a fortnight.

06/24

From what I've read, I should be sitting here in the balcony, an ideal seat until a millennial chick with a topknot plopped into hers, directly in front of me several minutes before curtain, that I hadn't had the foresight to tuck a handkerchief into my bag. Instead, I feel several tugs at the ol' heartstrings and gasped, "Oh!" somewhere in what I think was the third act. Still, I do stand with the rest of the audience at the end, because the last scene, oh, this is the one that makes me happy I actually left the house tonight.

06/25

My fictional twins, Gobsmack and Slackjaw (a boy and girl, respectively) were teased for their names when younger, but now that Gob is 26 and Slack is 23 (how that happened is still a mystery), they're thrilled that they're not lumped in with all the Justins and Emilys of the world and appreciate that I wanted them to be standouts. They say their names make them feel "punk rock", even though I'm not sure they know that that extends beyond a haircut and some piercings and tattoos that, nowadays, are more mainstream than anything else. Frankly, I hate their mohawks.

06/26

The search for the "perfect" tank top continues. How hard is it to find one that isn't long enough to double as a minidress or too thick for a decent semi-tuck (or whatever the scientists are calling it), one with ideal-sized armholes (it would take more than 100 words to describe what I prefer), shoulders "set in" quite a bit, with a racerback that doesn't necessarily have to cover the straps of a cute colorful "bralette" underneath, and a relatively deep scoop neck to show off the cleavage I'm thankful I don't have? Apparently very hard indeed. "Nevertheless, she persisted"?

06/27

The incline-walking schmuck on the treadmill next to me takes the small white towel that's been resting on the "dashboard" in front of him, holds one corner between the thumb and forefinger of each hand so it's stretched taut, a triangular bit of cloth dangling, and then flips the fingers fast to twirl the towel all the way up in one direction and then back in the other, and then repeats it several times. The few times he does this are the only times he releases his death grip on the dashboard. Is this his way of celebrating that victory?

06/28

I miss telephone booths. I miss the sound of the coins dropping into the different-sized slots. I miss the round-sounding whirr of the rotary or the gentle clack of the buttons. I miss pushing through the folding double doors to gain entry and the satisfying thwump of the doors upon closing them for a private few minutes doing something that, as you're doing it, you don't realize how fucking cool it is or that one day you'll think of it with great longing and wish for a time machine (with dials and knobs and levers) to take you back there.

06/29

Oh, Stephen Colbert and John Oliver and Steve Carrell, I hold you fellas at least partly responsible for my belief that often the straightest-looking fellas are the "zaniest", the ones who surprise you by being so pants-peeingly funny even though they wear suits and are incredibly clean-cut and could pass for someone's dad, and for making me wonder if this applies to the random boring-appearing guy on the subway platform in his standard-issue business suit. Is he secretly as hilarious as Kumail Nanjiani or PJH, an exceedingly straitlaced lawyer I dated almost 30 years ago whose marriage idea I rebuffed?

06/30

Fresh from Whole Foods, I plunk a half dozen or so bags of frozen fruit onto the counter, where they await placement in the freezer. This requires a bit of rearranging so these new pieces can fit into the Jenga "sitch" that already exists there.

The Vitamix, who I don't think I've named yet despite its having lived with me for almost four years, gasps with delight.

"I've missed the smoothies!" he (?) says. "We didn't do this last year. I was beginning to think you'd forgotten about me."